THE ALLEN HOUSE;

OR, TWENTY YEARS AGO AND NOW.

BY T. S. ARTHUR.

PHILADELPHIA:

1860






PREFACE.

WE point to two ways in life, and if the young man and maiden, whose
feet are lingering in soft green meadows and flowery walks, will
consider these two ways in sober earnest, before moving onward, and
choose the one that truth and reason tell them leads to honor,
success, and happiness, our book will accomplish its right work for
them. It is a sad thing, after the lapse of twenty years, to find
ourselves amid ruined hopes;--to sit down with folded hands and say,
"Thus far life has been a failure!" Yet, to how many is this the
wretched summing up at the end of a single score of years from the
time that reason takes the helm! Alas! that so few, who start wrong,
ever succeed in finding the right way; life proving, even to its
last burdened years, a miserable failure!